We have 3 miniature goats, Bibi, Figloo and Fudge. They have a huge enclosure in the woods, just behind the hen house. I feed them once a day – just a handful of corn as they have more than enough sustenance all around them – and marvel at their antics. They are our 100% eco friendly hedge trimmers and they keep most of what would be an overgrown jungle in an acceptable if somewhat rambling state. Quite simple, really.

Figloo!

 However our first experience with goats wasn’t that straight forward.

We had always talked about having goats so when a friend’s goat had a kid and he couldn’t keep it, he asked if we could give her a home.

Our friend lived & worked in the grounds of a stately home and was only allowed one goat, so how the kid came to be there in the first place is anyone’s guess but we were only too happy to oblige!

Betsy arrived one Saturday afternoon – she was cute,comical and just adorable! The joy though was to be short-lived.

Susie & the 3 sheep, surprisingly didn’t want to know and physically barricaded the stable door,keeping her out of their circle. Betsy bleated constantly like a lost child crying for its Mum. All very stressful and not at all in keeping with our idyllic country plan!

Betsy, getting up all close & personal with the camera!

After much unsuccessful coaxing and cajouling we decided to leave them to it in the hope that they would all gel eventually.

That particular night was the school fund-raising Bingo night.
We did well,between us managing to win 4 tickets to Eyrignac Gardens, 2 tickets to the ballet, a box of sun screen products and a fat duck ,oven ready I hasten to add, for it’s not unknown for loud, squawking, living geese to feature as bingo prizes here! But our minds were on Betsy.

We got home at 1.30 am in the pouring rain and immediately went to check how things were. Not good.
Betsy was still in front of the stable door, completely drenched & still bleating with the little voice she had left, since she was now quite hoarse.

We obviously couldn’t leave her like that so Amar thought we could maybe take her to the barn where she would at least be dry. Once there she took on a whole new lease of life, leaping and bounding everywhere and generally causing havoc, still bleating, although by now it was reduced to not much more than a croak . Amar found a rope and tried to tether her to a post but still she kept on jumping & twisting…

Betsy arrives at Les Crouquets!

It was at this point that Emma’s resolve snapped and she joined forces with Betsy in floods of tears, dramatically declaring that we were going to end up killing it. ( Emma is well known for her love of animals and is often affectionately called BB by her Dad, after Brigitte Bardot – in her later years of course, when she had turned her attention to campaigning against cruelty to animals!)

The mounting tension was palpable and when Amar loudly suggested that maybe Emma would like to find the goat something to wear and take it home with her & “oh yes, why not marry it at the same time?”,  I thought that maybe his resolve was about to snap too. His exasperated tone, dripping with heavy sarcasm was completely lost on Emma who for a fleeting, worrying moment looked like she was actually pondering over what she had in her pyjama drawer which might just fit…! Thankfully her bemused expression faded just short of the wedding ceremony.

(Joanna from Multifarious Meanderings, I now have a crazy mental image of the goat preparing for its nuptials & wearing a onesie … 😉 )

Luckily I then remembered the old dog kennel and thought Betsy may be happier there. We got the necessary things together and set off down to the bottom of the field for the shelter of the big trees and away from the posse of gendarmes guarding the stable.

It was still raining hard. Alistair led the way lighting our pitch black path with a sorely inadequate torch, but that’s all we could find at 2am. I followed, balancing the kennel on a trolley- not easy over a dark & bumpy field! Amar was next carrying the ever-bleating Betsy, muttering to himself at the ridiculousness of it all and Emma brought up the rear bearing gifts of tears and sympathy & now almost as distraught as the goat! We must have resembled a scene from some alternative nativity play.

The next day wasn’t much better – poor Betsy’s mouth was opening & closing to the rhythm of the bleat but nothing was coming out. She had completely lost her voice. We decided it wasn’t fair to keep her and maybe she still needed to be with her mother so we took her back home.

...and Betsy goes home again!

Bye Bye Betsy with BB keeping watch!!

Betsy did eventually come back to Les Crouquets, this time with her Mum, Nougat, and re-named as Bonbons which was altogether a much better experience, but that’s a tale for another time…..!!

My last post ( a shameful 6 weeks ago ) began with “It’s been a while…..” and that was only a mere 3 weeks on from the post before that…..I’m now feeling a bit inadequate at this writing game, given that one of the golden rules of blogging is that it should be regular. My apologies, but I do have my excuses. Technology. Last time it was this blog itself which had to be found and bits rewritten after most of it suddenly disappeared. This time was a much bigger issue.

After 4 years of disgustingly rude health, our computer died. Just like that. No warning, no coughing or spluttering to help me mentally prepare for its passing. It just died.

At first I wasn’t too concerned…I was saddened, of course – after all, my computer and I had become very close friends in our short time together but I still had our trusty little back up box which was there to comfort me in my hour of need. Alas like many insurance policies which catch us out on a technicality when the time comes my little black box failed to pay up. There was no information at all from June onwards and much of the other stuff including more precious photos and documents than I care to mention weren’t there at all.

After a few expensive & fruitless visits to the computer doctor we were told that nothing could be done for the back up box and were given a quote for hundreds of euros to try to retrieve the original information from the deceased hard drive.

After a few seconds of reflection Amar decided instead that it surely couldn’t be that difficult and after a bit of research bought himself a hard drive reader for the princely sum of 22 €. We now have all of our information, including my extensive photo albums, safely back where they belong – Lazarus, eat your heart out!

We also have a shiny new computer system which is proving a bit of a challenge, but we are well on the road to recovery so I’m not complaining..

So for a while, free from the shackles of social media and other such internet phenomena I have turned my attention to other things….

The upstairs barn has finally been decluttered – not that all you minimalists out there would be able to tell,but for me it’s a whole lot better than it was when I wrote this post at the beginning of the year!

The walnuts have all been collected a lot quicker than usual…admittedly this year’s weather wasn’t kind to us and the harvest isn’t as good as it should be which is a pity but still, we have plenty.

The kiwis have also been picked- they are hard as rocks but we didn’t want to risk them succumbing to the early morning frosts so hopefully they will ripen indoors. We still have a few jars of last year’s smoky kiwi & pineapple jam so I’m not quite sure what we’ll do with this crop.

Lots of painting has been going on which otherwise would probably never have been started, including some rooms in our house which shamefully haven’t been touched since we moved in 7 years ago. The irony of the cobbler’s children syndrome has never been lost on me but it’s still taken us all this time to do something about it!

And finally we have been out and about…after talking about it on and off for a while now we at last visited Oradour Sur Glane near Limoges.

This village was destroyed and all of its 642 inhabitants were killed by the Germans in 1944 – it has never been rebuilt and today it is just as it was left nearly 70 years ago. A strange mix of feeling appalled that these atrocities actually took place, sympathy for those who died and for their families who have had to live with what happened ever since and the detached, almost surreal impression that somehow we were wandering through a deserted film set after the actors had all gone home.

I will add some more photos to the Places To Visit page which I’ll be adding here just as soon as I’ve  finished the painting…. hopefully it won’t be too long!